John Byrne

Co-creator of the BallotBox.ie

John Byrne appears in the following:

Friday, February 25, 2011

Voters in Ireland go to the polls today to decide who should lead a country wrenching from near-economic collapse. The fallout from the banking crisis there is driving unemployment to 13 percent and forcing thousands to flee. The country's statistics office says 100,000 people will emigrate over the next two years — that's two percent of the whole population. But in this election, those people who left get no say in who runs the country. Ireland is one of the few nations that does not give the to vote to citizens living abroad.

To make this point, a website site called BallotBox.ie is letting Irish expats vote in a kind of shadow election. The site was created by John Byrne and Brian Reynolds, who emigrated from Dublin last year.